Tougher Measures Considered For Juvenile Offenders

LEGISLATURE '94

When police stopped the stolen 1983 Buick Regal near Pompano Beach earlier this week, the kids they arrested turned out to be old friends who had been busted before.

"Some of these kids we see once a week. They know us and we know them," Broward Sheriff's Office Detective Michael Lord said.

Within hours, two of the boys were sent home, released to their parents. Two others were in juvenile detention. They could be held for 21 days, but probably won't be.

These four kids and thousands of juveniles like them - mostly repeat offenders, mostly incorrigible punks - are targets of the package of tough new measures the Legislature has agreed to.

A final vote was delayed because the bill was still being printed Friday night. But legislative leaders said passage is virtually assured when the package comes up - either later Friday, on Saturday or early next week.

In brief, the new legislation calls for:

-- Adult trials and possible prison time for any juvenile, any age, convicted and committed for three felonies who is charged with a fourth.

-- Possible adult trials for juveniles as young as 14 who are accused of violent crimes.

-- Up to three years in secure juvenile treatment or custody, instead of the current one-year maximum more boot camps and a residential academy.

Whatever the long-term effects of the legislation may be, expectations are not high among those who will enforce them - the cops in the street, the prosecutors and the judges.

"Juveniles with 10, 15 and 20 arrests who don't serve any time have made the system a laughingstock," said Sgt. Mike Menghi of the Broward Sheriff's Office robbery unit. "Once kids have reached a stage where rehab doesn't seem to work, they have to be held to adult standards. Once they start seeing heavier time, if that happens, there may be fewer crimes."

But before that happens, problems and worries will have to be resolved.

One is that adult prisons have been notably unsuccessful in rehabilitating inmates, providing education or job training. Repeat offenderrates run as high as 70 percent prisons have long been accused of being schools for crime.

"Where people are missing the boat on this, in my view, is that the Department of Correction's [adult prison system) rehabilitation rate is much worse than the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services's has been in regard to juveniles," said Broward Circuit Judge Larry Korda, a former juvenile court judge.

Broward Juvenile Judge Melanie May agreed: "If they don't fix the DOC problem then it's not going to do much to solve the juvenile problem."

If kids are not getting help in the juvenile system, they'll be even more lost in the adult system, plagued by overcrowding.

"The kids become small fish in a bigger pond," May said. "If they don't do something to fix the problems up there, it will be of no value."

The bill could also have unintended ripple effects. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Howard Berman, for instance, thinks courts could become clogged - because fewer children will plead guilty to felony crimes, to avoid approaching the third conviction.

"I think you're going to see a lot more trials for juveniles charged with serious crimes," Berman said. "Instead of pleading guilty to grand theft or armed robbery, they are going to go to trial because [a guilty plea) will be one strike against them."

Many in the system like the proposed expansion of boot camps - but still say those programs are too new to draw sweeping conclusions about their effectiveness.

"Boot camps are fairly tough, scary tactics for street guys," said Sgt. Richard Lemack of Hollywood police's youth services unit. "But it all depends on the instructors and after-care."

That theme was heard repeatedly: Good programs won't do much good unless they include follow-up from counselors who can make personal calls on released inmates for years to help them get job training, education and drug counseling.

"I don't care how you change the system, unless they have the proper after-care for dealing with the real world, we aren't going to be successful," said Johnnie Brown, juvenile justice administrator for HRS in Broward County.

Still, Brown said, "This is step in the right direction. This is the most I've seen done in any legislative session in the 23 years I've been in this business."

Yet some had a nagging worry that the get-tough posture of the Legislature was simply posturing, and won't really solve anything.

"I think what everyone's trying to do is give the appearance that they're doing the best to put the kids away, which is not always the best answer," said May, the Broward juvenile judge. "A lot of it looks good on paper I'm not sure it's ultimately going to do the good."